Our previous poll, conducted Monday through Thursday of last week, found the race tied at 48 percent. Although Romney and Obama have each led at times, the two candidates have stayed within the margin of error since the spring.

Near the bottom there's a question: Who did you vote for in 2008? The results are Obama 50%, McCain 40% (others presumably didn't vote or were too young to vote). In other words, given that Obama won by just under 7 points, this polling sample is skewed 3 points to the Dems based on something clearly verifiable (the actual results in 2008). Now that's not completely indicative, you likely have older voters who passed on who may have leaned McCain and firsttime voters may lean Democratic, but it is an interesting measure of the skew.

This is a battleground poll for 10 states: The Battleground tracking poll has been performed nationally each week. POLITICO considers the 10 competitive battlegrounds to be Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Taking just those states and adding them up from 2008 I come up with 7.08% advantage for Obama, nearly the same as the 7.27% national advantage.

As I understand. Ed Goes one of the two founders of the poll, said last night there model they run, taking poll results and other metrics shows Romney winning 52-47. They are generally one of the most accurate groups out there.

If you go to the full internals, by region, you'll see that the full poll had respondents in numerous non-battleground states (like Texas and California). The 10 competitive states is a subset (and one they have Obama leading in, though I think there's a serious margin of error problem there due to the much smaller sample size).

Tell me if I am wrong, but some “pundit”...don’t know if it was Carville or Rove or someone else...but was there or was there not some “rule of thumb” that said an incumbent under 50% generally gets 1 or 2 points FEWER than his last poll number?

Near the bottom there's a question: Who did you vote for in 2008? The results are Obama 50%, McCain 40% (others presumably didn't vote or were too young to vote). In other words, given that Obama won by just under 7 points, this polling sample is skewed 3 points to the Dems based on something clearly verifiable (the actual results in 2008). Now that's not completely indicative, you likely have older voters who passed on who may have leaned McCain and firsttime voters may lean Democratic, but it is an interesting measure of the skew.

I was thinking of the same issue: who is voting this year who didn't vote in '08 and who voted in '08 who isn't voting this year? It has to be a bit more nuanced than merely the older voters in '08 having passed on the young first time voters replacing them. There are quite a number of not so young conservatives who foolishly sat out '08 out of frustration with RINO McCain and his passive campaign, but are now strong for Romney. You also have some not so old Democrats, especially so-called "minorities," who were enthusiastic for the Messiah in '08 but are sitting this one out in remorse or resentment at his performance as POTUS.

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